by K. G. Wilkie
She smiled at him, oh so politely, and told him exactly how stupid she thought he was for wasting his time out here fussing with the matters of the court when he was supposed to an invalid. It had been just a scant few days since the man had been stabbed in the brains, and it was hardly the right time to be pursuing brainy matters like the problems of his court and subjects.
Any argument that it was his job, and needed doing no matter what state he was in, were completely dismissed. He was sick, and it was now his job to be well for his people as far as she was concerned if he so insisted on caring about something as minor as his subjects so much.
He could easily brush that argument off. After all, Vovin had taken up the throne because he cared about the troubles of his very subjects. Titania knew that all too well, considering she had willingly passed her own rule over to him after she’d grown bored of ruling and fussing with official things for too many centuries.
Titania smirked at him. “That’s all very well and good to dismiss my concerns. However, it seems like this has got your queen pretty riled up on your behalf.” So saying, she waved her hand at one of the columns lining the room and caused it to become clear like glass. Exposed, Queen Yami’s cheeks were stained crimson, but still she held her head up and came forward.
She crossed her arms and stood before the dais. “I won’t apologize for hiding. She’s right- you shouldn’t be here. It’s ridiculous to have you here! Think of how it would hurt your sons if you were on the path to recovery, only to get sick or worse just because you were too stupid to take care of yourself properly. It’s time to be abed!” Her eyebrows slashed across her forehead, her expression clearly daring her husband Vovin to see what would happen if he dared to send her away for breaking protocol when Titania had already done so.
The king sighed. “I understand what you both are saying, but I can’t just leave my people to deal with everything on their own. I can’t assign Aeron or Richard to take over matters of state either, they are far too stressful with each other and it could trigger an out and out civil war which is the last thing we need with this rebellion going on.” He looked from one face to the other. Clearly neither woman was backing down, but he didn’t seem likely to either. “This is the absolutely worse time to just take a break,” he said.
Yami leaned over and patted his hand with a grin. “Don’t worry about your boys. I can take on all the official business in your absence. I am royal, I have been trained in how to do this sort of thing after all,” she said.
Titania crowed and walked to the hall. “It sounds perfect, you should take her up on it unless you want to feel the wrath of the womenfolk in implying the lady isn’t up to it. I’ll leave you two lovebirds to hash it out though,” Titania said.
Yami squeezed the king’s hand more tightly. “Is that a problem you are concerned about? Is that why you didn’t ask me in the first place?”
Now it was Vovin’s turn to blush. He had to admit he hadn’t even thought of asking her, but now she pointed out the possibility she seemed like a perfect fit. She’d been raised royal, and even better her position had been to rule the entirety of a different world. She would be well up to the task of taking on his role for some time to rule a much smaller population in his world.
Yami smiled and leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek. “Good. Now I’m going to have to ask that you go back to your bed and do some recovering like the doctor ordered,” she said.
The king agreed and headed off on her arm to his personal wing. The stress of keeping up appearances and staying up to date on his work was now fully relieved in his mind. Vovin’s face relaxed as all of his tension slipped away. Even the glamour pulled less painfully at his senses, as if both the spell and his phantom limbs had agreed to work together in a bit of harmony. For now, at least.
Yami’s face, however, was more animated than the guards in the hall had ever seen here. Her brow was furrowed as thoughts raced across her mind and fleeting smirks occasionally broke through her unusually stoic expression.
CHAPTER FOUR
Roped
If the king was suffering, there were others going through a similar sort of pain. Just days before the young wizard Kraelek had stood watching men stand on a similar platform. But where the throne room showed a symbol of royal might, this platform was a symbol of what happens to those who go against the long hand of the law.
The young wizard Kraelek had looked on from the back of the crowd as one after another, young people just like him were led up the stairs and strung from the hangman’s noose. At first they’d wiggle and wriggle, as any living being might, but soon they drooped, draped from above like limp cloths on the drying line. His shoulders bunched up at the sight of his comrades in battle being so piteous, and the guard holding his arm gripped him ever tighter in response. He should be up there among them, by all accounts, but he’d been given leniency. Kraelek had avoided being part of the actual battle, and he wouldn’t have been implicated at all if something hadn’t gone wrong with how the higher ups had set up the escape route after the battle.
People spilled out of the square, pushing against each other and laughing at the day’s events. While the flow of humanity trickled by, Kraelek ignored them all and kept his eyes ahead. The last testimony had been given, and the last trial ended, and the last person hung. The body didn’t move, but Kraelek’s eyes were glued to it like he was caught in the trance others find with eyes stuck on a dancing flame that would destroy them all if they just watched it long enough.
Kraelek was shattered by the trial. It had been a speedy and painless death for those convicted of regicide, but still. Some of those people had been mere acquaintances, more the potential of friendship than true friends. Their loss was sad, as loss tends to be, but it would be easy to recover from them. But then the loss of the younger wizards was devastating. The elders had directed how events would go down before the battle and then sent in the young ones to actually fight it. Those had been his friends, his mentors. Everyone he had looked up to and been close to, all gone in one day.
And now the burden was on him to feel lucky and privileged that they were all gone while he remained alive. Not only alive, but so far he was even given the courtesy of being considered technically a free man, though he noticed that this freedom came with constant surveillance so it was likely they just hadn’t decided on a suitable punishment for him yet. Nevertheless he was in a much better position than he had any right to be in considering the severity of the crime of regicide. At the very least, they were bound to consider him to be an accomplice. But still, even as an accomplice, he’d gotten off pretty well so far. Kraelek could only hope in his musings that it would stay this way, though he was almost certain the hammer would drop and he’d be punished in some gruesome and public display much like those who had already died this morning.
But if this was really real things would be different. If he truly was to get off with some sort of slap on the wrist, then it would still change his whole life. Word would get out that he’d been involved in this. His leaders in Dome City had stayed silent since his capture in the wake of the battle, so he couldn’t suppose that they were going to put any effort into helping him out. And with the public knowing he’d been involved in this, it wasn’t likely at all that he’d ever be able to get a job with one of the other nations, the vampires or any remaining shifters or anything of the like. He was probably doomed to joblessness and starvation if they chose to allow him to stay free of the noose.
But still, even with such grim prospects, Kraelek thought he ought to feel grateful somehow. It wouldn’t be easy to manage, but still at the end of the day the fact remained that his friends were tried and hanged and he was still alive and relatively unharmed. If he really was to be released, he’d have to embrace his freedom somehow in gratitude for the unlikely circumstances that had led him to be standing here instead of there.
Somehow he had to move on from this past and the conviction that painted him as a traito
r as well.
The young wizard’s musings were interrupted as what little remained of the crowd parted before him.
Done up in his full uniform in light of coming here as the king’s representative, Aeron looked every inch the royal as he made his way through the people. He could've flown away or used a spell to go straight to the palace once the trials had ended, but Aeron chose to be seen instead. Let the people know who they were dealing with. Let them see him, and to know not to get any ideas to repeat the events that had led to all of this. The prince walked the perimeter of the square, stopping to talk to individual families who were left.
Kraelek looked at him, and the royal retinue following behind, and turned his eyes away. A knot caught up in his throat but he didn’t want any sign of his trepidation to show on his face.
As the people trickled out of the stands the prince changed finished his circuit by heading to the young wizard. It wasn’t a welcome sight.
Prince Aeron, the one his people had died fighting against, looked at the guards holding him. And then he shooed them away. "I've got this one," he said, "Go about your business."
The men bowed and left their post, their eyes following the prince as long as they could while they went as ordered. The prince didn’t grab onto the wizard in their place. Instead, he stood next to the young man. Arms crossed before him and foot tapping as he kept his gaze glued to the platform ahead and the man who dangled on it. “You know, people always wonder if I feel some sort of satisfaction from things like this,” he said. He waved at the woman dangling in front of them. “They think that I’m the sort of creature who would enjoy death, but I don’t you know,” Aeron said.
Kraelek snorted, but knew better than to say anything.
“I don’t think crowds enjoy this sort of thing either,” Aeron added. Kraelek just snorted again at that. “No no, I’m serious. I think it’s more of a nervous frenzy when they laugh at this sort of thing. Sort of like the feeling, ‘better them than me,’ you know?” Still, the wizard said nothing. “You know, there were many who wanted you to be up there, like the rest of your friends,” Aeron said. “You weren’t directly involved in the battle at all. But you were involved enough that many wanted to see you hang as well with the rest of your friends,” he said.
Kraelek scowled and shook his head. “They weren’t friends, not really. Only almost. They just had the potential to become friends,” he said. “My friends were the ones who were on trial yesterday,” he added. Then he looked away and tried to shrug as if it didn’t matter. He didn’t quite succeed, especially under the eagle eyes of His Highness.
Aeron squeezed his shoulder. “I don’t doubt that,” he said. “But still, I think it’s a good thing to think about your future now. To think about where you could go in life,” Aeron said. They both stood and watching crows fly across the square and land on the bodies still there. As they watched, a crew came in with a donkey pulled cart and got to work removing the bodies before the birds could make too much of a mess. “I hear that before all of this, you were known as a bit of a rising star in Domed City,” he said. The prince looked for any reaction in the boy. No, now after all of this, it was probably best to call him a man. “I also am to understand that they haven’t spoken to you or made any efforts to get you or any of the rest some measure of leniency,” he said.
Kraelek sighed and puffed out a small cloud of breath in the nippy air.
“So, in light of the fact that I think you were stupid, but not actively treasonous yourself, I wanted to speak to you today,” Aeron said. He pulled the young man by the hand away from the crowd. The prince's guard pulled around them to make a barricade as they walked through the crowd. The few advisers that came behind the guards and stood in for the king’s regular retinue came up behind the young men and surrounded them both in a royal convoy bound for the palace via slow overground transport so the people could see the prince properly morose on this formal occasion. Once the last vestiges of the crowd cleared he leaned back in the seats and looked at the young wizard once again. "I have a deal for you," Aeron said. "You might not like it, but you'll do it for me anyway."
Kraelek wasn’t quite able to contain his groan at that.
"I was of the mind to push for you to be treated as guilty as the rest," he said. "But I first listened to the reports of my spies, and my father’s. What they had to say quite changed my mind. I think we can have a better use for you. I'm sure you'll do your best at it, in efforts to help me not change my mind," Aeron said. The full canines of his dragon form’s teeth peeked out of his lip and quite undermined any similarity to a smile his expression might have had on another person.
The prince went on. “I have had personal spies before. Two of them, in fact. But they have disappointed me. They’ve failed me, frankly, because I trusted in people who weren’t truly up to the task. So I sent them away to enjoy retirement. And I have pulled you aside because I decided I wanted you to take on the job in their stead,” he said. “Be sure not to disappoint me in the battles ahead,” Aeron added.
Kraelek’s eyes widened in shock. “Battles? But the throne has already won. It’s over now,” he said.
Aeron laughed. “That’s just what they want me to think. And you too, apparently. But it’s only just begun,” he said.
With a snap a scaled blue creature and a similar looking red creature were sprawled on the carriage floor. They both looked up in confusion, and then rushed to the prince to squeak their protests. They gestured wildly at the powdered sugar still on their fingers and complained that they were in the middle of enjoying themselves quite a lot.
Aeron flapped a folder in their faces. “Look at this! Read it!” They both complied. “Do you see what this says?” They both nodded in tandom. The red one scuffed his feet, albeit awkwardly because it is hard to do a proper scuff when you are seated. Still, he managed to look quite guilty and contrite. He pulled off a scaly attempt at puppy dog eyes quite well.
Aeron didn’t buy it for a second. “I can’t believe it,” Aeron roared. All of this time you’ve been going around like you two were me! You’ve been ruining my image! Bothering my guests! I don’t have to wonder why Alyss hates me so much if you’ve been annoying her using my appearance!”
Red and Blue quickly stood and bowed and promised that wasn’t the case at all. “We did it for majesty,” Red whined. “Majesty wanted her kept at room, so we kept her at room. We did good,” they whined.
He stabbed his finger in their faces. “I’ve spent all this time searching for her, and then trying to get her on my side, and you think I wanted you two harassing her? What else have you been up to?”
They shuffled their feet. “Sometimes we go around the court as you,” Red admitted.
Aeron threw his hands up in the air. “No wonder this entire kingdom thinks I’m this evil person they want to stand against if you two tricksters have been standing in for me! You know what,” he added. Both of the minions shivered. “I believe I am going to have to be very stern in punishing you both for this. Yes,” he added with a gleam. “No more pastries for either of you for an entire year!”
They both burst out into tears and clutched his feet. “No, I insist. You both have been very very bad, and I will not stand for you impersonating me. You must be taught how serious an offense this is. I will instead pay your wages in normal gold this year, but I will send out a notice to every bakery in the kingdom that they are not allowed to sell you even a single day old bun for this entire year for the crime of impersonating royalty.”
They rolled on the floor in clear agony.
Kraelek, still looking on, pitied them. “Don’t you think just a month’s punishment would be severe enough,” Kraelek ventured.
Aeron shook his head. “No, I’ve decided. They will have to make do with peppermints instead of getting a single baked treat for a whole year. And they are both sentenced to retirement, effective immediately,” he said. He looked meaningfully at the wizard. “You probably still rem
ember, but that’s where you come in,” Aeron added.
Both creatures moaned again, but Aeron dismissed their complaints. “Once the punishment is over, you’ll get your full retirement with your favorite sweetbuns as agreed on. But until then, you are stuck with only your pension cash and the house in Anstaten,” Aeron said.
Aeron leaned over and whispered to Kraelek, “It’s a good city for them, plenty of daemons and other unsual sorts like themselves live there.”
Both Red and Blue moaned about the changes, but the prince waved his hand and sent them through a portal with Anstaten on the other side.
The prince leaned back in his seat again. “Now that’s that. They’ve retired, and gone on to have a generous pension-8,000 szar a month- and someday you’ll be equally well rewarded. Assuming you don’t get involved in any more rebellions, of course,” Aeron said.” He barred his fangs again, but then switched to a genuine smile. “I’m looking forward to it, I think you’ll be a great assistant with your background,” he said. The carriage started on the driveway to the palace. “Ah, and we’re here. Once we get in, you’ll need to get to work immediately on researching the dating rituals of humans on Earth. You can start out at the library here, and then I’ll send you over for some on-the-ground research on the Original. They call it Earth there, you know? And I’m expecting you’ll be able to give me a full summary of dating rituals and romantic gestures and that sort of thing humans get up to over there. I’ll be sure to instruct my staff to make sure that you are sent to my school so you can get good local methods,” he went on.
Kraelek looked at him with a gaping mouth. “You can’t tell me that the entire reason you made sure I got pardoned was so that I could fix the thing you said earlier with your now retired staff about how they upset some girl,” he said.